The state of Sombra

General Discussion
1

I peaked 4488 playing Sombra this season, have been playing her for 3 years almost only and peaked at 4550.

Sombra is a hero that suffered a lot from 2-2-2 role lock and sombra specialists such as fitzyhere, me, Haker (chinese contenders winner Sombra otp) struggle to maintain our Sombra in high ranks consistantly over time. Yes we can still peak high with luck and playtime but can not maitain ourself to high gm+ for long periods of time.

Sombra is a hero that lack of consistancy in teamfights compared to almost any other DPS atm. She does a few damage and can be denied by good players pretty easely.

imo Sombra biggest issue is that her entire kit can be disrupted by the ennemy team. Yes she can silent people but she can somehow gets silented by any other heros :

Translocator killable = forces to play more passive because it can be destroyed ----> 6 seconds cooldown

Hack can be interrupted —> 2 seconds cooldown

Invis can be interrupted —> 6 seconds cooldown + cast

For instance when you play tracer, or genji, or doomfist, or soldier, or any other dps, when you use one of your abilities you are almost certain it wont be canceled. Yes a tracer dash can be interrupted by a junkrat trap, but it cant be interrupted by all the heros in the game if that makes sens to you guys.

Her kit feels cluncky because sometimes you are in a fight, your translocator get killed, you get out of invis because someone spied check and you can’t hack because you are getting shot at and you die.

I dont know how to explain it to people who do not play Sombra because I have 1000+ hours, but it feels like all your abilities can be canceled by anyone in the ennemy team at any time basically if that makes sens and that makes her frustrating to play and team reliant because she can not consistantly rely on her own abilities every fights.

6 Likes
2

Sadly it’s a “fun” issue. Increasing the damage needed to cancel invis or hack would make Sombra more balanced and viable. but at the same time everyone will cry about it until Blizzard nerfs her back into the ground. Sadly she probably won’t be viable across the board unless her hack gets a complete rework.

3

Her kit is so damn fragile it hurts to play

1 Like
4

You’re entirely correct, she’s way too punishable and hard to get value out of. She needs help. Likely reverts would be best for her but you know how they are about reverts. She was never op, people are just lazy and refused to spycheck. Her treatment is an embarrassment to the Overwatch community. If EMP was the problem they they should have reworked EMP and not repeatedly gut her kit.

1 Like
5

In a 2-2-2- scenario, indeed she doesn’t offer enough as other DPS do. When your team is relying on her to eliminate, as you mentioned, her abilities can be interrupted relatively easily. One idea would be to put less pressure on her to have to kamikaze, that means less reliance on her to be an out and out DPS.
I’ve been saying for some time now, while I prefer 2-2-2 to 3-2-1, I think 3-2-2 is worth experimenting with. I absolutely dislike the concept of having 1 tank, I think 2 tanks and 2 healers are necessary, adding 3 DPS introduces a lot of new ways to play and more freedom to characters like Sombra to thrive in a creative manner.

6

yeah the thing is that most of the “OP” Sombra era around season 9 was mostly due to a lack of gamesens/laziness from other players.

Lucio would not hide to counter EMP with beat, Zen wouldnt react in time for EMP with their trans, Dvas would not spy check and this even in top 500. Now even master lucio players do it and you even have Ana, Hog, brig and mccree keeping their stun cooldowns to cancel EMP :laughing:

even in contenders NA when Sombra was “OP” Dvas were not spy checking and lucio/zen did not know how to counter EMP

people really started to understand sombra around goats actually

1 Like
7

I was able to get Sombra into mid diamond (3380) with roughly 200 hours on her learning on a fresh account. I dont grind rank with her I just wanted to see how high I could get her with 200 hours of QP, learning her from scratch.

These are my suggestions:

  1. Make a minimum damage taken requirement to take her out of invis, instead of just any damage. (Suggestion 20 damage)
  2. Reduce hack cancellation cool-down to 1 second.
  3. Invis animation reduction 50%
  4. EMP hacks everything - Including Mines before they arm and orisa shields before they open.
8

Do sombra players like hack or invisibility more, honestly i think her invisibility is the crutch holding her back, cause any buff would break her at low ranks a lot.

I would rather get rid of her invisibility or make it such that she has to stand still to be invisible and when she moves she is visible but has the speed.

and just buff her weapon with more range and tighter spread.

So that she can actually fight and not crap in her pants and run away everytime a enemy turns around to face her.

To me even without invisibility just her hack and translocator will keep her really strong with just a better weapon buff.

9

I really want Sombra to be good, yet I am sure she would probably be weak for a long time. Even when she needed buffs they nerfed her anyway.

Sombra is an unfortunate victim of poor balancing, which lead to even more poor
balancing. In the end her balancing is such a mess that they would rather keep her super situational than deal with her.

The only hope I see for Sombra is either OW2 with a rework. Or just playing her in HOTS when they add her.

I kind of accepted that Sombra in OW1 is a lost cause.

10

They just put too much into the kits that they cant b e balanced properly like doomfist.

11

As someone who plays Sombra, Spy (TF2) and generally enjoys Stealth games, i feel confident that reworking her too be more fast-paced and aggresive will make her more viable rather than slow-paced and methodical.

12

Yeah she currently is too slow for the game

13

Make hack refill some or all of her gun clip. Make damage not unstealth her at all, but slightly lengthen the duration she’s visible for when taking damage or touched by an enemy hero.